MY RELIGION 



my 



Philip Johnson Fishback 




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MY RELIGION. 



'What the great 
"What the origin of 



^^FT we ask ourselves the questions: 

creative plan?" 
"How and when first came religions?" 
man?" 
As we slowly travel backward, on the avenues of Time, 

Through the valleys of Tradition, and the mystic mountains 
climb 
Through the map-lost Aztec empires, through the lands of 
mosque and dome, 
Of the early Aryan races, and the first Turanian home, 
Past the pyramids of Egypt, where the mounds on Tigris 

rise, 
To that grave beneath the ocean where the lost Atlantis lies ; 
As the writings and traditions of the nations long since dead 

Are exhumed from hoary ruins, and by patient scholars read ; 
As the veil is slowly lifted that conceals the Past from sight, 

And as Science lights the darkness of that long, unmeasured 

Night; 



II. 

As we search through ancient records, far as truth or legend 

leads, 

For the story o£ Creation and the origin of creeds — 

Through the Gospels of the Christian, through the records 

of the Jew, 
In the Koran, and the Vedas, and the mystic and the true; 
Our present great theologies, as will clearly thus appear. 

Had their birth in old traditions, and in ignorance and fear. 
In the times of mental darkness, and when men were rude 

and wild; 
When the brute was most developed, and the Reason yet a 

child; 
When 'twas thought that Nature's forces all had human 

traits and form; 
That a god gave out the sunshine, while a demon sent the 

storm. 
As men feared these unseen beings their own ignorance 

had reared. 
Soon in vague and slavish terror they then worshipped what 

they feared. 



III. 

If we would enslave the body we must first enslave the 

mind — 
The ignorance of the masses is the bondage of mankind. 
Men are largely led and governed through ^'religious" zeal 

and hate ; 
Hence, the rulers and the clergy early merged the Church 

and State. 
Then they taught the trusting people (and they teach it yet 

today,) 
That a few are bcrn to govern, while the many must obey; 
And whene'er the masses murm.ured, priests and rulers taught 

the throng. 
"It will all be right in heaven", and "The king can do no 

wrong"; 
"Servants must obey their masters", and "Draw nearer to 

the rod"; 
"For the rulers are anointed, and have been ordained of God." 
In each struggle of the masses for their rights and better 

laws. 
An Established Church and clergy have espoused the tyrant's 

cause. 



IV. 

Honest doubt brings search for knowledge ; knowledge leads 

at last to Truth; 
Age and time oft prove the error of opinions formed in 

youth ; 
In the onward march of progress, and the widening reach of 

Mind, 
Creed-bound churches and their clergy have forever lagged 

behind ; 
They have claimed Divine appointment to proclaim a Sacred 

Word, 
While they've hounded "unbelievers" and condemned them 

though unheard; 
They have scoffed the voice of Reason, and have tried to 

chain the pen; 
They have crucified the Thinkers, and have dwarfed the 

minds of men. 
The inscriptions on the milestones, guiding Progress through 

the years. 
Have been written and re-written with the thinkers' blood 

and tears; 
Yet, the race keeps marching forward — with the thinkers in 

the van — 
Leaving worn-out creeds and dogmas — working out the 

destined Plan. 



V. 

Though the march be slow and painful, and the Truth be oft 

denied, 
Yet the Truth at last must triumph, and the Error stand 

aside ; 
Thus in every age and nation have been some who sought 

the Light — 
Some of grand, heroic courage, and who dared proclaim the 

Right; 
And for them, on Nature's altar, lay a book of wondrous lore. 

Filled with Learning's choicest treasures — a profound and 
/ endless store. 

Open wide that Book of Nature! There behold the Builder's 

plan! 
There, in records clear and perfect, read the Message left 

for man ! 
There's the story of Creation — and we well may read with 

awe — 
For we find no myths nor fables, but that everywhere is Law ! 
Study well that Sacred Volume! Heed no churchman's 

frown or rod! 
There's the perfect Revelation! There's the evidence of 

God! 



VI. 

No Immaculate Conceptions, and no miracles are there; 

And no man-made gods or devils the confiding throng to 

scare. 
(Deeds of Christ, Mahomet, Buddha, need no mystic, God- 
wrought plan ; 
For their lives show clearer, grander, as ideal types o£ man.) 
There no hell of endless torments, hopeless screams and 

devil's din. 
Nor of that blasphemous falsehood of a race conceived in sin ! 
There no God as savage monster, spreading ruin round His 

path — 
Breathing vengeance 'gainst His creatures — pouring out His 

vials of wrath ! 
Nature's book has no such record ; and a god of hate and rage 

Is but the ignorant concept of a past barbaric age. 
Mother earth is still an Eden, wherein angels yet might 

dwell ; 
Through his greed and lust and blindness, man alone has 
made a hell. 



VII. 

Nature's story of creation is the same within all lands ; 

It is sculptured in the limestones, and is etched upon the 

sands ; 
It is graven by the glacier, it is chiseled by the stream, 

And is printed on the fossils that in hill and valley teem; 
It is written on the mountains, with their walls of tilted rock; 

In the vast volcanic fissure, and the earthquake's dreaded 

shock. 
It is seen in ocean corals, and the diatomic shell ; 

In the growth of complex bodies, and the protoplastic cell; 
In the change of inert matter to the spreading branch and 

root. 
From the seed-germ's first unfolding to the flower and 
ripened fruit; 
In the work of Primal Forces, far as finite mind can range ; 
In the Unity of Matter, and infinity of change. 



VIII. 

Nature's forces and her records are around us everywhere ; 

We may see them in the water, in the clouds, and in the air; 
In the silent power of sunlight ; in the work of frost and ice ; 

In that strange electric fluid, and the lodestone's weird 

device; 
In repulsion and attraction — that unknown, atomic force 

That gives life and form and motion, and directs each planet's 

course ; 
Through the spectroscope and spectrum, which disclose to 

mental sight 
Primal elements of bodies, by dividing rays of light; 
Through microscope and telescope — which reveal to human 

eyes 
The endless forms of Littleness and the vastness of the 

skies — 
From infinitude of Smallness, to that vast, abysmal space 

Where the stars fade out in darkness and Conception veils 

her face. 



IX. 

From her mountains, plains and waters, in her sky-domed 

lecture hall, 
Nature teaches of Creation, and the laws that govern all; 
In those laws so v/ise and wondrous, we may trace the 

Maker's plan, 
And in records true and perfect, read the Message left for 

man; 
In the countless forms of being, with their endless scheme 

and range — 
In Life — with all its mysteries — and in Death — the later 

change ! 
There the Holy Inspirations in their purity are found — 

And we well may tread with reverence — for it all is Holy 

Ground ! 
Nature's book has endless problems with the answers yet 

unknown — 
And when man that knowledge masters, he will stand with 

God alone ! 
Yet, with all our finite limits, and in weakness we must plod, 

Who but reads aright from Nature, reads the Message from 

his God! 



/ 

As men grow in mental stature, and their social life expands, 

Their environments must widen or they burst the swaddling 

bands ; 
While we honor ancient wisdom, and the great, immortal 

dead. 
Yet new problems have arisen — times have changed and 

knowledge spread; 
Every later generation has been cramped and pinched and 

sore. 
Wearing outgrown mental garments from the age that went 

before. 
All the earnest agitations that arise and grow apace 

Are but conscience-quickened protests of a mind expanding 

race. 
Far too long we've rendered homage to old fictions, faiths, 

and fears; -.. 
Fraud and error ne'er are "sacred" though they live a 

thousand years. 
Far too much our laws are cumbered with old "precedent" 

and "code," 
Till they /a/7 of right and justice and become a galling load. 



XI. 

We have reached that stage in progress when our creeds and 

laws must change ; 
When men's honest thoughts and efforts must have wider 

scope and range; 
When we need a new religion — freed from ignorance and 

strife — 
For the minds of men are starving for a truthful Bread of 

Life. 
"Faiths," "immersion," and "election," and a "purgatory" 

pen, 
Are too triBing for attention from progressive, earnest men; 
That we're all "depraved by nature" is a libel on mankind; 

And to ask "rewards" from heaven shows a base and selfish 

mind. 
Let us preach that new religion from a higher moral plane 

Than craven fear of punishment, or the hireling's hope for 

gain; 
Let us preach less "hell and torments," "Noah's flood," and 

"Adam's fall" — 
More of God's transcendent goodness — through earth's 

bounty for us all. 



XII. 

Let our creeds and laws be fashioned to improve our social 

plan — 
Based on Truth and Love and Justice, and the Brotherhood 

of Man. 
Let us rise to higher levels — rise above the seething flood 

Of our groveling lust for mammon, and the brutish thirst for 

blood; 
Rise where "vested rights" of dollars hold no Rights of Man 

in thrall, 
But God's lavish gifts through Nature are the heritage of all ; 
Where true manhood — mind and morals— shall be given 

merit's meed. 
While no more are place and honors bought by cunning, 

soulless greed; 
Where religion, linked with Science, Nature's wondrous laws 

shall trace — 
Searching out her endless secrets — ^winning blessings for the 

race; 
Where the reign of Thought and Justice — told by poet and 

by seer — 
Shall restore to man his Eden, and will make a heaven here. 



XIII. 

When we pass into that future, and have done with mortal 

breath, 
And the conscious, thinking ego has survived the change 

called death, 
In that realm that men call heaven there will be no streets of 

gold, 
And no rich in princely mansions and no homeless poor and 

old; 
There will be no saintly nobles, re-enacting worldly scenes. 

Wearing crowns upon their foreheads, aping earthly kings 

and queens; 
No exclusive, sacred city, walled around with precious stone, 

And no throngs of idle angels simply chanting round a 

throne. 
There will be no cross or crescent — Christian, Moslem, 

Buddhist, Jew; 
Each the only "true believers," each the special, "chosen" 

few. 
Justice then will be so perfect, and the mental view so wide, 
All such fictions and distinctions will be quickly swept aside. 



' XIV. 

Change, development, and action — are the universal laws 

That are fixed for mind and matter, by the all-pervading 

Cause. 
When weVe laid aside the mortal, and immortal have put on. 

Then will come sublime Progression — and a wondrous mental 

dawn; 
Earthly mists will quickly vanish from our death anointed 

eyes 
As the glories of Creation in unending changes rise ; 
Freed from worldy din and dulness, then our clear, enrap- 
tured ears 
Will catch the rhythm and melody of "the Music of the 

Spheres"; 
Then will come that feast of Knowledge — and that fulness of 

the soul, 
As we learn the Cosmic Order and the laws that all control ; 
In pursuit of endless Knowledge we'll the highest heaven 

find 
Learning more and learning ever of the Great Eternal Mind ! 



